Friday, September 28, 2012

I don't know how I've missed The Goodbye Girl, but I saw it recently for the first time. I LOVED IT!

I loved the characters: Elliott's persistence, Paula's real-ness, and little Lucy's quips. I loved the story and some of the lines made me laugh out loud - which rarely happens when I'm watching a movie by myself! :)

If you have missed it (like I had), watch the trailer below (although the trailer looks kinda cheesy, it's a Neil Simon play so you know it has credibility!):

I do love daisies and bright colors... There's even a little boston terrier (or maybe a french bulldog?) in that photo frame - and OWLS! I kinda like chevrons although I don't think I own anything with a chevron pattern.

The sassy description says:

Sassy is just that! She couldn't be short on personality if she tried. She expresses herself with playful colors, fun patterns, and an unabashed boldness—all acquired at very savvy prices. She knows her style, and she's not afraid to take risks and have fun. When you visit a Sassy friend, you can't help but smile.

Sounds pretty accurate, I think! I like small doses of bright colors, though - I gravitate more (in decorating) to more muted, vintage-inspired colors.

Monday, September 24, 2012

I've posted photos of crazy Lucy before, but I just can't get enough of them. :)

Lucy is really obsessed with wiffle balls, which we discovered when she found a rogue one in our yard that we assume a neighbor's kid hit over our fence. She went crazy for it, so we bought her a pack that she has been going through.

She somehow pops them in half and then prances around with them in her mouth in the most hilarious ways.

Friday, September 21, 2012

You know I love happy customers! I was updating my booth last week and had just brought the fancy globe in. A girl came back to my booth and said she heard from Caroline at the front counter that I had a globe. I showed it to her and she loved it as much as I did!

She scooped it up then her friend joined her in the booth and bought one of my suitcases!

I found out that the globe-buyer lives in Brooklyn and I am so excited that my globe is going to have a fashionable new life in New York!

Gabrielle sent me a photo of her new suitcase, which joined her suitcase collection:

I'm hoping to get a photo of the globe once she heads back home! I didn't catch her name but hopefully when the email comes through, I'll know. :)

Thursday, September 20, 2012

I have some news... I start a new job on Monday! It's really bittersweet, since I've spent the last 7 years at my current job. I loved it and it feels like a part of my identity, but there have been some some challenges recently that helped me decide that it was time to begin a new chapter. I will be working for a really great company and my job will largely be focused on working on websites for faith-based children's programming and brands. It's going to be so different but I'm really excited!

All that to say, I had taken a LOT of vintage items to my office. We recorded artist interviews in our office and the set was decorated in a vintage style (of course!). I packed up all the various items I had brought in and took them up to my booth since I didn't have room at my house for them!

Everything in this photo went up to my booth except for the green lamp on the right. It was given to me by a family member and I'm holding onto it. It looked really great on our set, though! Now I need to find a new home for it in our house!

I love this globe. A few years ago, my friend Andra invited me and our friend Emily to go with her to her best friend's house to shop. He was seriously downsizing, his family had lived in the house for decades, and he allowed us to shop around and buy basically anything we wanted. It was a treasure trove of vintage and we both found some really great items!

This globe was a great find and it lived on the set and was featured in many of our videos, but Andy and I just don't have anywhere to put it in our tiny little house. I reluctantly took it up to my booth - but I feel confident it has found a great new home. (More on that later!)

More estate sale and thrift shop finds - but the cute red toy car on top of the stack was a donation to my booth from a generous publicist friend. He has hooked me up with several things and it's so nice of him!

If you see anything you like, be sure to visit the Tennessee Antique Mall in Nashville and ask for Booth 85!

Wednesday, September 19, 2012

I'm so excited to offer up a Smash Book Prize Pack! One lucky winner will get the pink Smash Book, black and white polka dot Smash tape, two packages of Smash pockets, Smash stickers, Smash tabs, and four Smash pads! I should mention that the Smash Book comes with a really great pen that has a glue stick as a cap!

This could all be yours!

Just enter below using the Rafflecopter widget! Being a subscriber of Owl Really is a mandatory entry and then you get a bonus entry for liking Owl Really on Facebook and for tweeting about the giveaway.

This is my first rafflecopter giveaway, so hopefully I set it up correctly. :) Let me know if you have any problems! The contest begins today, Wednesday September 19th and ends next Wednesday the 26th! Rafflecopter will select a random winner and I will announce it next Thursday!

Good luck!This post is not sponsored by Smash Book at all! I
just love smashing. I've been telling my friends about it for months, so
I'm excited to be able to really show people what it is! This
giveaway is provided partly by me and partly by Smash after I contacted
them to see if they would be interested in doing a giveaway.

Tuesday, September 18, 2012

When I turned 30, I decided to start documenting our little life. I had heard of Project Life and googled to find blogs about Project Life but somehow along the way, I discovered Smash Book, a very easy, free-for-all style of scrapbooking. Both techniques interested me because with their simplicity, they both seem like the "anti-scrapbook."

Scrapbooking, to me, seems like one of those things that has gotten really excessive. Layouts and embellishments have to be perfect - there's a constant pressure to get those photos printed and arranged just right. I know a lot of people who dread scrapbooking because it's so much work! Their photos pile up and they get more and more behind which makes it harder and harder to get motivated to begin.

I didn't want to dread scrapbooking, I wanted to love it. Project Life appealed to me since it was so simple - print photos, stick them in the photo pages, and journal about the photos on 4x6 cards that fit in the pages alongside the photos. But Project Life products are a little pricey and you are a little limited in designs. (Later this year, Project Life is releasing a beautiful new collection designed by one of my favorite bloggers, Elise!)

I was on the fence about Project Life. I wanted to do it but getting started seemed intimidating since there was so much to buy and the products go in and out of stock.

As I was looking through scrapbooking products on Amazon, I started seeing Smash Book products. I was intrigued and started looking into it more. I kinda like messy things and for as long as I can remember, I have loved collaging. As a teenager, I collaged anything I could get my hands on including a wooden chair and the light switch plate in my room. Loving collages so much sparked my interest in Smash Book.

A Smash Book can be anything you want it to be. There are people who follow prompts and "smash" on a particular topic each day and there are people who use it as an art journal. For me, I just smash photos and souvenir scraps and document our life. It's so fun and allows me to be as creative as I want to be.

I smash about once a week - I have a little storage tub with all my smash supplies stored inside. I use scrapbook paper, paper scraps, some embellishments, washi tape, etc... anything that I feel like using. My layouts don't have to be perfect (I love not being a perfectionist!) - I just want to write down what we do and how I feel and what's going on in our lives. I've never been great at journaling and this helps me take time to reflect.

The fun thing about Smash Book is that the books are all themed and the pages all have designs on them already. I sometimes cover up the pre-printed designs and sometimes I leave them as-is. In the above wedding spread, I incorporated the flowered background into my design. Sometimes I cover the entire page in scrapbook paper, like with the Ollie spread. I wanted to be able to control the colors on those pages... but sometimes I just keep the original pages and smash all over them. I have complete creative control and I love it!

Stay tuned tomorrow for a very fun Smash Book prize pack giveaway!! I can't wait to share Smash Book with a friend. :)

Oh, and for a behind the scenes look at creative chaos... this is what it looks like in our living room when I smash:

It's a mess - but it's a fun mess!

Edited to add:

The best part about my smashing is that when I'm done with whatever pages I did, Andy takes the book from me and reads aloud what I smashed in a HILARIOUS voice. It makes even the serious pages seem funny. :)

Also --- This post is not sponsored by Smash Book at all! I just love smashing. I've been telling my friends about it for months, so I'm excited to be able to really show people what it is! Tomorrow's giveaway is provided partly by me and partly by Smash after I contacted them to see if they would be interested in doing a giveaway.

Monday, September 17, 2012

On September 8, two of our good friends got married! Through Andy's job, we have gotten to know some really amazing people. Hardly any of them still work at the company where they met, but they all still stay in touch and get together on a regular basis.

Adam and Katie both worked with Andy, but then they moved to Austin last year. They returned to Nashville for their wedding, which was amazing and beautiful!

The wedding was on the most gorgeous day we've had in months at a venue called Front Porch Farms.

Friday, September 14, 2012

Elizabeth from Stockroom Vintage introduced me to Hillary from Brocade Designs over the summer. I got to work on some crafts for some weddings Hillary was doing, including painting some of the bottles you see in the centerpiece and making tissue paper poms. It was so fun to be crafty and then I helped her team Saturday and Sunday of Labor day weekend with some more projects. The decor for the wedding with the bottles and poms was insanely gorgeous!

I was around flowers all that weekend, but none could come home with me! I was so pleasantly surprised to find these waiting for me when I got home. :)

I have been inspired by this Pinterest board to practice hand lettering. I'm pretty terrible, but it's fun to doodle. I bought some pencils and thought it would be fun to carry them around, so I made myself a little quilted pencil case. It's far from perfect, but I love it!

Monday, September 10, 2012

We had a challenging later half of the summer which is leading into a challenging fall. Change is in the air and I am prayerful and hopeful. Because my mind has been preoccupied, it has been hard to focus on writing and coming up with new posts.

Also, I haven't thrifted since coming back from CA, so there hasn't been anything to report on that front. But, I will get back into that routine (my booth depends upon it!) and back into the routine of blogging. Aaaaand, the weather is cooling off so I am hopeful for some good estate sales!

I will hopefully have some fun things coming up - I want to finally share some images of my Smash Book and some small sewing projects I have been working on. I also still need to write about California, but I hope to do a Project Life style book for that trip and share that.

If you are super curious about our trip, my mom did a great job of showing our trip in these posts: part 1 / part 2.